Tough Love
by Taaroko
Summary: Post 5x10 wish fulfillment. After Damon leaves Elena crying by the fireplace, she realizes that unconditional love is the problem, not the solution. Enjoy and review!


Holy crap that episode was a doozy. After I finished it, I sat there in shock for about five minutes, and then I started writing. But the site wouldn't let me log in until this morning. Grr. Anyway, the thing that bothered me most about the Damon/Elena fight (break up?) was how *nice* Elena tried to be to Damon after what she just found out. I wanted her to be furious and call him out for his crap. So that's what this is, and I desperately hope something like it will be in the next episode.

The background song I imagine playing during this is "Demons" by Imagine Dragons, which is so appropriate for Damon/Elena it's almost like it was written about them.

* * *

It took about two hours crying in front of the fireplace before something clicked in Elena's brain, and all the pain, shock, and grief transformed into furious indignation. Five seconds later, she was barging into Damon's room—_their_ room, still, if she had anything to say about it.

Damon was standing by the window, a half-empty bottle of bourbon in one hand, a crystal tumbler in the other. He didn't turn around at her entrance.

"Don't."

"Don't what? Don't fight for the most important person in my life?" Something about that made him cringe, but Elena didn't care. "The hell I won't! That's not who I am anymore, Damon. See, I figured it out. It doesn't matter that I don't hate you, because you hate yourself, and you think that's all you deserve from anyone else. Just like the first time you told me you love me."

"Nicely deduced," said Damon, sounding bitter and defeated. He set the bottle and tumbler on the windowsill, then slowly dropped his hands back to his sides. "What do you want for that, a gold star?"

"You said you can't change," she plowed on, her fists clenched, "but that's the biggest cop-out I've ever heard in my life."

At last, he turned to face her, and she could tell that she'd shocked him.

"You're trying to justify falling into old patterns by pretending it's out of your hands, but it's not. If you hate yourself so much, then do something about it! Don't just push away everyone who sees you for your potential. _You're_ the one who chooses what you do. A year and a half ago, you chose to snap Jeremy's neck, but half a year ago, you fought against compulsion to stop yourself from killing him. You would've rather let him kill you than give in. You've saved his life more times now than I can count. And Bonnie? You tried to kill her too back then, but she wouldn't be back with us now if it wasn't for all you did for her. That's not even the half of it, but you expect me to believe you when you tell me you can't change? That all you are is bad?

"If you can't see all the ways we've _both_ changed since we met, then you're an idiot. Stefan wasn't good for me because he never challenged me or called me out for putting myself in danger without thinking it through. He always played it safe and told me what I wanted to hear, or tried to fix me instead of making me confront my own problems. You never did any of that, and I'm stronger because of it. I don't just do things to keep everyone else happy even if I'm miserable anymore, and that's because of you. You forced me to change for the better. And I might be frozen at age eighteen, but I'm not a statue; I'm going to keep changing. Change is what it means to be alive, and it's why I feel more alive with you than I've ever felt before."

His eyes were shining with an emotion Elena wanted to believe was hope, which made her own burn more brightly within her. She started moving towards him. When she was directly in front of him, she reached up and clasped her hands around the back of his neck, her thumbs resting at his jawline. A slight shiver ran through him, and he swayed a fraction of an inch closer to her. The corners of her lips pulled up in a smile. When she spoke again, it was in a softer, but no less impassioned tone.

"You and Enzo were in that place for five years, and you couldn't save him. As psychotic and screwed up as it is, I _get_ that you felt like you owed it to him to carry out the plans you made, but today you found out he's still alive. And it's been fifty-two years; your revenge has lasted ten times as long as your torment. You need to let it go instead of letting it control you for another fifty-two years. Help Enzo. You couldn't save him then, but you can now."

Damon closed his eyes, not saying anything. The silence dragged on so long that she began to worry that she hadn't gotten through to him after all. But then, faster than the human eye could see, his hands shot out to pull her against him, and he was kissing her with a level of desperation she barely recognized. The time he'd tried to kiss her after Katherine's rejection was the only thing that came close. She kissed him back with everything she had. She'd been one push of a syringe plunger away from turning into a vampire-killing ripper today, and she needed him as badly as he needed her.


End file.
